Feb to March car rental

[suevee]

I am trying to find a reasonable rental for 10 days Feb 19 to Mar 2. The cheapest is over $500 for a compact, which is to small for us. The full size car is over $800. When would be the best time to look for a rental??? I am getting very discouraged......

 

[loveswdw]

I'm right there with you. Car rental rates are crazy right now. We are going Feb. 26-March 9th. I'm getting much higher rates than for any prior trip. I keep hoping that specials will come out closer to the trip. I got a Budget e-mail yesterday and the rates were good for pickup through 1/31/09. So hopefully at around a month out we'll get some good specials.

Right now, I've got a full size reserved through Dollar for $332. That's picking up at the Regal Sun in DTD and dropping off at MCO. Going to take ME to the hotel for the first day then picking up the rental the next day. That was the cheapest option I could find.

Picking up/dropping off total at the airport was almost $600 or even higher for each code I entered. Budget was WAY higher.

And we have to have a car because part of our trip in on property and part is staying with friends and family.

 

[jlewisinsyr]

Not to sound discouraging, but although I would anticipate that prices may go down some, I wouldn't expect them to go down a lot.

There has been a lot of discussion on this forum as well as on FlyerTalk and other outlets about the pricing changes everyone has seen. To sum it up, the rental car companies have been more successful in fleet reductions then the airlines. With fleet reductions, there are less vehicles available, which means higher prices for everyone. Another problem is the increasing costs associated with fleets. Manufacturers are more and more reluctant to lease/sell their fleet vehicles at the same levels of discounts as in past years, which means higher costs to the rental agencies, which will be passed onto the renters.

The last, which is outside of the rental car companies control is the increase in taxes and fees and a lot of airport locations. Local governments and airport agencies have found great success in charging travelers for airport upgrades, and recently there was a small increase made at MCO.

 

[ilovefh]

Check booking through Southwest. We lucked out yesterday for Feb. 20-March 1 for $285. Not fantastic, but much better than $800!